The Verdict of History over German fascism” by A. B. Ranovich and the Soviet Historiography of Antiquity during the Great War

The present article is a publication of the manuscript of Abram Ranovich’s article “The Verdict of History over German Fascism”. This document is kept in Ranovich’s fond in the Scientific Archive of IRH RAS (F. 41. Op. 1. D. 7). During the author's lifetime, for reasons unknown to us, the article was not published. However, we believe that it is of considerable interest to modern historians. First, this article is important for the reconstruction of the scientific biography of Abram Ranovich, testifying to one of the directions of the scientist's work during the Great War. Secondly, this article will be useful to specialists in the field of Soviet historiography of antiquity, since the material we have presented is significant not only in the context of the biography of an individual historian, but also for analyzing the directions of work of the scientific community of Soviet historians of antiquity during the war years as a whole. Finally, the work of Abram Ranovich may also be of interest to a wide range of historiographers engaged in the development of the problem of “Historical Science during the Great War”, allowing specialists to see the specifics of the use of the material of general history in historical works aimed at a wide range of readers and designed to show the entire invalidity of the theses of fascist propaganda. All this becomes possible due to the fact that Abram Ranovich, a specialist in the field of ancient history, in his work “The Verdict of History over German fascism” gave a number of examples of successful reflection by the peoples of the USSR of military aggression in the past (the attempt to conquer the Massagetes by Cyrus) and tried to reconstruct the history of Germany, which was presented by him as a series of unsuccessful attempts of the Germans to achieve domination over their neighbors. The manuscript is published according to the rules of modern orthography and punctuation. It is provided with commentaries explaining important historiographical facts from the point of view of the publishers

European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society